CIA Stopped Looking For Bin Laden

The CIA has disbanded a special unit that has for a decade hunted Osama Bin Laden. And of course the CIA is trying to tell us that this doesn't hurt the "war on terror", but their reporting on bank accounts does.

(NY Times)"The efforts to find Osama bin Laden are as strong as ever," said Jennifer Millerwise Dyck, a C.I.A. spokeswoman. "This is an agile agency, and the decision was made to ensure greater reach and focus."

However a former CIA official, and common sense, tells us different.

Michael Scheuer, a former senior C.I.A. official who was the first head of the unit, said the move reflected a view within the agency that Mr. bin Laden was no longer the threat he once was.

Mr. Scheuer said that view was mistaken.

"This will clearly denigrate our operations against Al Qaeda," he said. "These days at the agency, bin Laden and Al Qaeda appear to be treated merely as first among equals."

So what do you think is more dangerous? A story about something that we already knew, or the fact that almost 5 years later the man responsible for 3,000 deaths is still alive and we are cutting and running from trying to find him.